


Sneeze! BANG! Thud.

by EdgarAllenPoet



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff and Crack, Gen, IPRE, Magic and Science, Pre-Relationship, Science Bros, Sick Character, Sickfic, Sneezing, Stolen Century, unsafe lab procedures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:55:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25993267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: Barry sneezed so hard that he smacked his head on the table, and then tumbled sideways out of his seat and onto the floor.
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/Lup
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	Sneeze! BANG! Thud.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lizzy_Writes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizzy_Writes/gifts).



Three decades into the Stolen Century had all of them developing routines, and several months into each cycle itself developed whole new routines of their own. Some cycles they hardly set foot in the Starblaster lab at all, but during cycles like this one, they rarely stepped out of it. 

The world was grey, foggy and humid, and cold. They found the Light almost immediately, and with that done and out of the way, some of the crew dedicated their time to studying it while others faced adventures out in the cold, grey nowhere. 

Lup didn’t miss much about Tusun, but she did miss the heat. Two suns is better than one, and these days, better than none at all. She wrapped her blanket a bit tighter around her shoulders and pushed her hair back out of her face, huddling over the fragment of Light she had perched carefully in a stabilizing vacuum. She carved at it a little with a scraping probe, watched it hiss and spark in response. Strange. She wondered if maybe--

SNIFF.

She paused, looked up at her lab partner, and found him still diligently studying. Hm. 

She wondered if maybe the mass in the Light was compressed, or maybe there was an illusory alteration affecting--

SNIFF.

“If you have cocaine you have to share,” she told him, but when she looked up to smirk at him, she found him not paying any attention. She cleared her throat, was ignored. Okay fine. 

But perhaps there was some illusory alteration affecting the light, since it _looked_ weightless and intangible, equal parts iridescent and translucent, but was actually quite heavy, and was able to be scraped. She shaved off a thin sliver of the light, watched it flutter to the table top like a feather, and then--

A sneeze, of incredible volume. Lup jumped, eyes flying across the table to Barry again, who was rubbing his forehead miserably and wiping his nose on the back of his wrist. Sometimes she wondered how he still managed to be so cute. Only sometimes. 

She looked back at the Light, to see what had become of her sliver, but it was gone. Part of the table was glowing. Interesting. 

“You okay?” 

Barry’s response was definitely an attempt at language, but it wasn’t any language Lup knew. He talked like his tongue was too big in his mouth. “Ab fum,” he said, and she blinked slowly once, twice, then shrugged and returned to her work. 

Try again then, she thought, and shaved off another piece. It began to fall again, and this time she blew gently at it, to see if she could move it herself. It swayed in the air, and floated back towards its source in the vacuum. They collided, and it was reabsorbed in a quick _pop! Zap! Spark!_

Oh hell yeah, that was fun to watch. She shaved off another piece. 

She wanted to see what exactly it did when it hit the table, and she wondered if it had any affect on the table itself. She’d test that next, once she’d Light-ed another section. She scraped it off, watched it start to flutter and fall, and then suddenly--

In a series of sounds that could only be described as “ _sneeze_ , _BANG, thud!”_ Barry sneezed so hard that he smacked his head on the table, and then tumbled sideways out of his seat and onto the floor. The table jumped. Both of their fragments fell free of their vacuums and hit the table, which ate them right up in an oozing, absorbing fashion. Those two large swaths of the table glowed. Lup stared at them, open mouthed, and said, “Babe get back up here and get a lookat _this_.” 

Barry scrambled back upright and gaped at the mess on the table. He spoke, once again, nothing near common, “Uhwoh.”

“Right?” Lup agreed, deciding to just roll with it. She leaned in close to peer at the table, glanced underneath the table to make sure the Light hadn’t fallen through and started eating through the floor. The coast was clear, and also, barry was wearing toe-socks. What a dork. 

She said, “You should touch it.” 

“Wah?” he responded. “Ew tah et.” 

“Did you _lick_ the _Light_ when I wasn’t paying attention?” she wondered out loud. He rolled his eyes and sniffed, hard. It sounded painful. “ _Touch it.”_

_“Oh.”  
_

_“Yes!”  
_

_“Ime!”_

He touched it, placed his whole hand palm down in the middle of the largest glowing portion, and a full-body shiver wracked its way up his arm and throughout the rest of him. His hair crackled, stood up on end. He pulled his hand away, and his palm was glowing. 

Then he coughed, and then he sneezed, and he caught the sneeze in his palm. When he pulled his hand away from his face, cringing, his nose, mouth, and jaw were all painted an iridescent glow. 

Lup just about fell out of her chair laughing. 

“Wah?” he insisted, and when his only response was laughter, he rolled his eyes again and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. He wiped his hands on his jeans-- one swipe of his thigh now glowing-- and started prodding at the table, speaking as he went, still entirely incomprehensible. 

Lup couldn’t stop laughing. She was cackling. She was going to piss herself. 

“Wuhd ew ahp aht?” Barry said, fixing her with an impatient expression, and she giggled harder and tossed a roll of towels across the table at him. 

“Blow your nose, I can’t understand you,” she told him. He tried to catch the roll, but fumbled with it, and it bounced twice before rolling into the glowing domain of the light. It crackled for a second, fizzled, and then started to glow. 

They both stared at it for a moment before bursting out laughing anew. Lup was crying. Barry sneezed again, and then coughed, and then started coughing so hard he had to double over and brace himself against the wall so he didn’t collapse. Lup collected herself enough to go pound him on the back and then started dragging him out of the lab. 

“That’s enough outta you, Germs McGee. Go to bed before you contaminate all of our science shizz.” 

He blew his nose. It honked. The tissue was glowing. The snot was glowing. Oh, this could be a problem. She hoped Merle knew how to fix it. 

“And wash your hands, please, seriously, you’re turning into a man-shaped glow stick.”


End file.
